As ever with former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, the announcement was plumped up with self-righteousness and just a hint of mystery.
Nearly two years after quitting as Scotland’s First Minister, she has now resigned from her marriage. But while standing down from high office was a political shock, the decision to part from her husband of 14 years was not quite so unexpected.
To most women, particularly at the reflective age of 54, separation is a time for quiet contemplation, grieving even.
Instead, there was a breeziness about the tone of yesterday‘s Instagram post in which Sturgeon confirmed that she and her husband Peter Murrell had been living apart for some time, adding imperiously that it was ‘time to bring others up to speed with where we are’.
But to Sturgeon’s acquaintances, the brevity of the statement is matched by a curiosity about where and with whom she might next reappear.
As the Mail reveals today, she has been spending time in a home owned by the best-selling crime writer Val McDermid.
The former journalist, who proudly describes herself on X as ‘Scottish’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘feminist’, has made no secret of her admiration for Sturgeon.
McDermid, who is married to geography professor Jo Sharp, praised Sturgeon’s ‘clarity and courage’ over her decision to impose a lockdown during the Covid pandemic.
Last April the two women shared the red carpet at the LGBTQIA Diva awards in London, at which Sturgeon was pictured without her wedding ring.
Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that she and her husband Peter Murrell had been living apart for some time (pictured on the Queensferry Crossing)
Ms Sturgeon leaves a flat belonging to her friend crime writer Val McDermid
Val McDermid and Ms Sturgeon on the Peter Robinson Memorial Bench at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate
They have also held a series of ‘in-conversation’ events where they discuss their love of books with literary guests. Further dates are planned for March.
Sturgeon was seen leaving McDermid’s £320,000 flat in Edinburgh’s fashionable New Town area on January 4.
The day before, Sturgeon had posted a picture of Edinburgh Castle on Instagram with the caption: ‘One of these days, Edinburgh, when you really melted this Glasgow heart.’
Rumours about Sturgeon’s private life have, however, been swirling for some time.
Two years ago mischievous social media gossip exploded into the public domain linking her romantically with an unnamed member of France’s diplomatic corps.
At the time she attempted to dismiss the stories with characteristic humour, saying that when she reads accounts of her private life it is ‘so much more glamorous-sounding and so much more exciting’.
When asked directly in a BBC podcast which French diplomat she was having an affair with, she replied: ‘I’ll tell you off camera which one it is supposed to be but whichever one it is we’ve actually had a laugh about it.
’Under the circumstances, it’s hardly the most convincing of denials, you might think. All the same, she did point out that her desire for privacy and some ‘simple pleasures in life’ was one of the reasons she quit as First Minister.
Ms Sturgeon and Val McDermid in conversation at the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, during their In The Company of Books event
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell began their relationship in 2003 and were married at a civil ceremony in Glasgow’s west end in 2010
The couple, pictured in 2022, ruled at the top of the SNP and Scottish politics for many years before Ms Sturgeon stood down as first minister and party leader in March 2023
McDermid, was more direct. Describing the rumours about her friend as ‘vindictive gossip’, she added: ‘She’s been a focus for the lies as well as the criticism. I think that’s deeply unpleasant.
’Sturgeon and Murrell had been two of the most formidable and powerful figures in Scottish politics – a relationship that troubled both their critics and some allies. But, over the past two years, it has dramatically unravelled.
Back in April 2023, a Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances culminated in a two-day search of the couple’s modest Glasgow home.
As part of the search, a blue forensic tent was erected in front of the property and a luxury camper van – thought to be worth around £110,000 – was impounded from outside the home of Sturgeon’s mother-in-law in Dunfermline.
That month Murrell was arrested – and later charged over the alleged embezzlement of donations to the party in April last year.
Although his estranged wife – who was arrested in June 2023 – remains under investigation as part of Operation Branchform, she has not been charged. She strongly denies any wrongdoing, while Murrell has not publicly addressed the allegations against him.
For those who have been following every twist of this extraordinary saga, the next instalment was expected to be the memoir Sturgeon has been writing about her nine years as First Minister and her bitter falling-out with former leader and mentor Alex Salmond.
It is due to be published this year. Instead, displayed on a purple background headed ‘Personal’, came her statement about the marriage.
In April 2023, a Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances culminated in a two-day search of the couple’s modest Glasgow home (pictured)
Mr Murrell, six years Ms Sturgeon’s senior, was every bit his wife’s equal (pictured outside St Paul’s Cathedral in June 2022)
Ms Sturgeon with her husband Mr Murrell, as she was officially sworn in as Scotland’s First Minister in November 2014
She wrote: ‘With a heavy heart I am confirming that Peter and I have decided to end our marriage. To all intents and purposes we have been separated for some time now and feel it is time to bring others up to speed with where we are.
‘It goes without saying that we still care deeply for each other, and always will. We will be making no further comment.’
A week ago Sturgeon appeared to acknowledge that politics had impacted her and Murrell’s relationship, telling the Financial Times: ‘It was all-consuming for a long, long time.
’Her interview, however, triggered a rare public statement from Alex Salmond’s widow Moira. Referencing comments Sturgeon had made about his conduct towards staff and colleagues, Moira suggested the attacks were ‘deeply unfair’.
Allies of the Alba leader, who died suddenly last year, wonder if the marriage bulletin was a not-so-subtle attempt to head off criticism of Sturgeon.
To the public, Murrell was the quiet half of a marriage that produced no children but suffered heartbreak when Sturgeon miscarried in 2010 – the year they got married. But behind the scenes Murrell, six years Sturgeon’s senior, was every bit his wife’s equal.
They first met at SNP youth events in the late 1980s. She remembered him as ‘Mr Gadget Man’ because of his habit of wearing electronic gizmos attached to his belt.
It was hardly the most promising of starts, but by the early 2000s romance had blossomed.
The relationship was officially confirmed in 2004, by which point Murrell had become the SNP’s chief executive
The former Scottish first minister revealed the news via a post on her Instagram account
The relationship was officially confirmed in 2004, by which point Murrell had become the SNP’s chief executive, taking the party from the fringes to the centre of Scottish politics. Murrell remained in the post when Sturgeon succeeded Salmond following the failed independence referendum vote in 2014.
To show that they were an otherwise normal couple, they invited Good Morning Britain television cameras into their home. But, if the aim of the exercise was to make them seem more human, it was scarcely a roaring success.
The kitchen of the four-bedroom property was pristine, with only the very expensive £1,400 coffee machine looking like it got any regular use.
As she wandered round, presenter Susanna Reid was struck by the near-clinical levels of cleanliness. ‘Immaculate,’ she said, ‘like a show home.
’Far from humanising them, the lasting impression was that they were a bit of an odd couple. But then, of course, politics – and their dream of Scottish independence – was their life. There was something equally clinical about the way they held both party and country in their thrall for so long.
It was claimed later that some SNP bigwigs were uncomfortable about the iron grip the pair had on the party. But if Salmond – who quit the party in 2018 after being accused, and later acquitted, of sexual assault – was unhappy with the arrangement, he did not say so publicly.
Back in 2010, the then First Minister was among the guests when Sturgeon – in an ivory halter-neck dress and silver tiara – and a kilted Murrell married in a civil ceremony. To underline their nationalist credentials, the couple’s wedding cake was made by Scots’ confectioners Tunnock’s, famed for its tea cakes.
They became the model of a stay-at-home workaholic couple, for whom entertainment was an Indian takeaway and television.‘
The fact that we are on first-name terms with the person who delivers it on Friday night shouldn’t allow you to read anything into my lifestyle,’ Sturgeon told Susanna Reid as she simpered.
Sturgeon also let slip that she ironed her husband’s shirts on a Sunday night, because ‘that kind of gets me off the hook of any other domestic tasks because, in my head, that’s me, I have pulled my weight in the house with the domestic chores’. She added rather sheepishly: ‘I’ve never been very good in the kitchen.’
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell present Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh with a stone bench in July 2016 at the Palace of Holyroodhouse
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell watching Scotland in the Six Nations against England in 2020
What she could always do was point to the impressive triumphs she and her husband, whom she called her ‘rock’, secured during her time as an elected politician.
She led a party that won 56 out of the 59 seats it contested in the 2015 General Election. That same year her approval ratings reached 71 per cent, higher than any other Western leader, and she performed so surefootedly in the televised leaders’ debates that many English viewers Googled ‘Can I vote for the SNP?’.
Yet there would be precious few other peeks at married life behind their front door over the years.
Theirs is not the first political marriage to implode, but it may be the first to self-destruct hand in hand with an independence movement they were once at the heart of.
Additional reporting: Gavin Madeley in Glasgow